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I migrated to Linux 2 years ago and was a distro gypsie trying to find something that made me feel comfortable and fuzzy. Now all the disties mention here have many great qualities , such as slackware or gentoo which force you to learn everthing about linux. Or Redhat or Suse which are excellent stable safe and easy to use. However on balance Linspire was the best simply because the install was simple the interface has a lot featurtes that break the new user in gently. So i am a linspire user and happy.

Feel free to critise me if you wish however i will not lower myself into my distro is better than yours arguement.

Linspire - a clear no brainer. Any Windows user with no tech or Linux skills whatsoever can go right into Linspire and resume their work from there effortlessly. From that point, if they so choose, they may grow their skill to handle the higher Linux skill that the other distros that you mention all require.

Linspire. Without a doubt. If you don't want to see the command line ever in your life, you won't have to. As a newbie feels more adventurous, though, they can venture out into the wide world of command line interfaces! Simply the best for anyone beginning.

man whats with all the linspire loving, i found linspires cnr to be very overrated and limting, as there is a severe lack of programs in cnr and if its not in cnr its 100 times more impossible to install than any other distro because NOONE makes packages for linspire so if you need something thats not in cnr then your fcuked

What some of you who have a downer on Linspire fail to realise is. That Newbies like myself are just starting out in our Linux journey. Yes the CNR software is limited but it is steadily improving and so far it has delivered in its task to make using this OS as trouble free as possible. I for one like the fact that there are viable alternatives to the Microsoft empire whether it be Linspire or any of the others on the list. Nows not the time to be carping on about which distro is the best. They are all heading in the right direction as far as i can see that is to say breaking the stranglehold Microsoft has on the market. Lets use our heads not our egos and work to enlighten others to switch to linux of whatever flavour.

Linspire. Most user friendly. One click software installation.
Great community support in their forums. Excellent hardware detection.
Very good visual appeal. Hands down the best choice for someone
making the move from Windows.

Given the choice I would have without a doubt recommended Linspire 5.0, for the new user it's hands down easier than any of the distros in your poll. When it comes to installing software it's light years ahead of these choices.

In my experience, RedHat is the best documented and supported distribution. That is why we started with RedHat.

We currently use v9 and will upgrade its kernel to xx.30 soon. The reason for the version/kernel selection is that we are implementing OpenMosix for thread management. That open-source product has been completely tested on that distribution.

I would tend to agree with the poll findings that Knoppix is better than Mepis. However, the poll question was, "Which Linux distribution would you recommend to a newbie ?", (vs. which Linux distribution do you personally feel is best !)

As I see it, Knoppix is better than Mepis for someone who is more computer and/or Linux savy. Which a newbie most likely isn't. Knoppix is full of Linux utilities / configuration programs / EMACs / etc. that are likely to frighten a newbie a way because it all seems so complex.

Mepis, on the other hand, tends to be more geared to Linux applications / internet programs / games / etc. that aren't as likely to scare off someone who's trying out the Linux waters for the first time.

Also, I've found Mepis to be SIGNIFICANTLY easier to install to a hard disk than Knoppix was.

The first live cd i downloaded was Austrumi which i probably wouldnt recommend to beginners unless theyre latvian but i'd recommend feather or Damn Small Linux to people with dial up. But i think PClinuxOS would hav to get my vote a live distro for beginners, rather than Mepis, as for me Mepis did not connect to the net easily, and PCLOS has limewire which would attract new users. My favorite live distro is Slax as it has a small download size and there are many versions, and i'm not keen on the way certain linux distros try to make it look too much like windows, linux has its own identity.

The desktop Pro version of SUSE goes in easy, finds everthing that I have on my systems - inc a TV turner card on one system, dual video cards on another and a dual headed video card on a third system. It supports all my sound cards - in fact I have yet to run into something that the installer can't deal with. The first 30 days of updates and patches are free, so if something the installer needs isn't there it picks it off the web in the updates.

I had been using Mandrake 10.2 and Xandros Std Edition 3.0 for
a year and I found the they have compatibility issue with my
PC and now I switch to Kubuntu 5.04 . It works great ! Everything
run smoothly. Boot up time is faster and GUI is better.

It's an easy install, it will even set up the Internet connection w/o asking any questions a newbie ( should but won't ) know the meanings or reasons for. Other than, how big/small should I resize your current windows partition to be, that is.

I have had an almost completely headache free list of folks I give this distro to as their first brush w/ the light side of the force. Even better , they can sign up and pay a small fee to get updates etc. in a virtually painless way. I believe also includes help when there are *difficulties*.

Next in line would be Suse. And the latest Knoppix version as a rescue system. Since newbies, as well as a good many "regular" users who know better but still don't seem to manage to do their backups regularly.

If I'm doing the install, Slackware.
If the newbie is capable of following a set of simple instructions, Slackware or Ubuntu.
If the newbie is doing the install and I get a sense that they're barely capable of point and click, probably one of the RPM based distros. Then I'd hope they picked a few simple skills and I'd gently nudge them toward Ubuntu or Slackware.

If were going to stick to a debian system I would probably go with Kanotix, Ubuntu is going to end up causing more problems for Debian because it drifts from the released packages and uses many of its own packages. Kanotix has everything Knoppix has, plus usually has more support for devices. I do have to say though - most of the new releases are good sound Linux setup's for the Newbie. I constantly try many of the most popular distributions and find that Fedora Core, Mandriva, Suse - all have nice installers, are easier then ever before to set up, and are pleasing to the eye. I usually run 6 distributions on the same system for comparison - but at heart I am a Debian person. The biggest problem I see for many newbies - is that they do not get use to thinking about Linux apps that do the same as their MS counterpart.

At the moment I'd go for Xandros, I'm very impressed with OCE Desktop 3.0. I've been using kubuntu Live CD to demonstrate Linux to people who know nothing about Linux, in fact have never heard of it. The feed back I am getting is always favourable. Most of them are very impressed, and would consider changing to linux.

While there are very simple to install and update distros in the marketplace, please don't forget LIBRANET.

LIBRANET with its ADMINMENU offers all of the features afforded other Debian distros with the ease and simplicity that new users can enjoy. Easy to install, easy to update and maintain and hundreds of programs that can be installed easily with SYNAPTIC.

Im using mepis as it has great user freindly wifi
suport. I cant wait any longer for the stable
debian sarge to come out, I think it mite
be an absolute beauty. Mepis or knoppix i would recomend
recomend now.